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Hauth to look at feasibility of reallocating more officers to frontline policing

Mayor Bill Mauro brought forward a resolution asking police chief Sylvie Hauth to prepare a report looking into whether more officers can be moved to frontline policing
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THUNDER BAY - Thunder Bay Mayor, Bill Mauro, said he receive countless emails and phone calls from concerned citizens demanding something be done about the growing level of crime in the city.

“We are losing neighbourhoods,” Mauro said. “My mailbox, the phone calls I get, people are leaving the city, they are not going to stay here. They are very concerned.”

Mauro expressed these concerns during the Thunder Bay Police Services Board meeting on Tuesday where he brought forward a resolution asking the Thunder Bay Police Service chief Sylvie Hauth to prepare a report on the feasibility of moving more officers to frontline policing.

“These are very difficult problems and we are not the only city that has them,” Mauro said. “We need to show we are trying to find a way to get more officers out there.”

The police board passed the resolution and Hauth will return with a report in January on whether this can be done, but after the meeting, Hauth said it’s not a matter of simply shuffling staff around.

“The easiest answer to that is I need more staff,” she said. “When you have so many people who are off, that is difficult to juggle. That is quite a few holes in terms of the frontline officers. Overall speaking, I’m trying to come in juggling OIPRD recommendations, Inquest recommendations, additional staff for big projects, and also being very mindful to be fiscally responsible.”

“It’s really difficult moving people around to frontline policing,” Deputy Police Chief Ryan Hughes added during the meeting. “We know we need frontline officers and it would be good if we could have our 20 plus officers back.”

Officers who are off duty due to injury are still on the payroll and cannot be replaced, Hauth said, which is one of the biggest challenges when it comes to moving staff.

Mauro used the example of transferring officers from other units to the frontline, such as school resource officers.

"If you have two people working in the schools, and understanding that that is good proactive work, but if you are going to come here and tell me that it’s better to have those officers there and not on the front line, then so be it,” Mauro said. “But I don’t feel that way. I think there is more we can do.”

“The difficulty with that is I will be able to show you that if you take school resource officers for example, the amount of work they do on a day-to-day basis within the schools actually takes away calls for service from uniform patrol,” Hauth said. “They deal with problems that if not there would become a call for service.”

It all comes down to money and budgeting for what the police services needs, according to Hauth, saying it would be a difficult sell to city council to ask for money to hire additional officers.

“Do I want to come in with OIPRD recommendations plus tell the city I need another 10 or 15 staff added?” she said. “I would love to. But I need to be able to show what we are doing internally. The report is fair in terms of the ask of what we can redeploy or what we can move around.”

“Even if nothing changes, as an exercise as a board, this is what we are doing to meet this demand,” Mauro said. “People are beyond concerned and worried about it.”



Doug Diaczuk

About the Author: Doug Diaczuk

Doug Diaczuk is a reporter and award-winning author from Thunder Bay. He has a master’s degree in English from Lakehead University
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